North American theme parks last year enjoyed a marked growth in attendance, in some cases surpassing pre-recession numbers. But at SeaWorld, visitation instead slumped.

A report that tracks visitation at amusement parks worldwide, released this week, revealed a 3 percent decline for SeaWorld San Diego — dropping its attendance to 4.3 million — and an even-larger 5 percent slump for the Orlando, Fla., park. They were two of just five parks out of the top 20 in North America that saw declines in visitors, according to the nonprofit Themed Entertainment Association and Aecom, which each year releases a report that tracks and analyzes attendance figures not normally divulged by the parks.

The other three parks were Busch Gardens in Tampa and Williamsburg, Va., and a Canadian park in Ontario.

The overall gains were notable, the report notes, because they represented the fourth consecutive year of growth since the worst of the recession, evidence of the resilience of the theme park industry.

Higher ticket prices

Several forces were likely at work in depressing attendance at SeaWorld, among them higher ticket prices, continued criticism of its treatment of killer whales and an inability to lure visitors from other theme parks that are debuting mega-attractions, say theme park analysts.

“SeaWorld has a chain-wide problem,” Robert Niles, editor of Theme Park Insider, said Wednesday. “They’re just not developing attractions that are hitting with the public the way other competitors are like Disney, Universal, Cedar Fair and Six Flags. Part of that is because their ownership was in limbo for many years. But they did put a lot into Antarctica in Orlando, but it bombed.”

And the San Diego park, Niles noted, didn’t debut its new Explorer’s Reef attraction until this year.

“So when you have your entrance torn up much of the year, that doesn’t help,” he said.

SeaWorld Entertainment, while not addressing the attendance drop itself, released a statement disputing the accuracy of the Aecom figures.

“While we do not report our numbers on a park-by-park basis, it is worth noting that the actual attendance was significantly higher than the estimates at some of our parks in the 2013 report,” the statement read. “Last year, SeaWorld Parks generated its third consecutive year of record revenue and operating profit, based in part on strong attendance in our SeaWorld-branded parks.”